LOS ANGELES — The city spends millions of dollars a year repairing the sidewalks of Hollywood, and by its own accounting it is falling further behind every year it does.
Budget records reviewed by the Times show that the backlog of sidewalk-repair requests in the Hollywood area has grown steadily since the pandemic, even as the money allotted to fixing them has stayed roughly flat. Residents report buckled and cracked walkways — most of them heaved by the roots of aging street trees — and then wait, in many cases for years, for a crew to arrive.
The problem is neither new nor unique to Hollywood; the city has struggled with a citywide sidewalk-repair obligation for more than a decade, the subject of a long legal settlement over access for people with disabilities. But the Hollywood numbers show the squeeze plainly. A council committee that reviewed the repair program this week was told that new damage reports are coming in faster than crews can close them, and that the average wait for a non-priority repair now runs well over a year.
Councilmember Alicia Rendón, whose district takes in much of the area, pressed public-works officials at the hearing on why the backlog keeps growing. “We are not talking about luxuries. We are talking about a woman with a walker who cannot get to her bus stop because the sidewalk is a staircase,” Rendón said. “Every year we fund this at a level that guarantees we end the year further behind. At some point that is a choice, not an accident.”
Public-works officials responded that the work is slower and costlier than it looks. A single root-damaged panel often cannot simply be replaced; the tree that lifted it must be assessed, and removing or trimming its roots raises its own questions and its own costs. Inspectors must prioritize the worst hazards, which means routine damage waits. And the crews compete for the same limited budget as every other street need in a tight year.
The committee also heard from residents who had waited. One, a retired teacher from the flats south of Franklin Avenue, said she had first reported the cracked walk in front of her building three years ago, had been given a service-request number, and had heard nothing since. “The number is very official,” she said. “The sidewalk is exactly as broken as the day I called.”
No new money was allocated at the hearing, which was informational. Officials said a fuller review of the repair program would come as part of the next budget cycle, when the sidewalk line will compete, as it does every year, with paving, streetlights, tree trimming and the rest of the public-works ledger.
For now the backlog stands where it has stood: a long list of cracked and lifted panels across Hollywood, each with a request number, each waiting its turn behind the ones judged worse, in a queue the city acknowledged this week is growing faster than it is being cleared.